184 Bird-keeping. 



the winter, and in the following spring sent them to 

 a lady in Devonshire, who had an aviary in her garden, 

 in w^iich I thought they were more likely to breed 

 during the summer, as they are hardy birds. All the 

 little foreign birds seem to require a great deal of 

 space for their nursery arrangements. She put them 

 at first, however, in an eighteen-inch waggon-cage in 

 her morning-room, and found that they began their 

 proceedings by building false nests, laying a number 

 of eggs and deserting them. I believe she gave them 

 too much stimulating food; which Mr. Wiener, the 

 owner of the birds reared so successfully, tells me is a 

 mistake, as it excites the birds to continual egg-laying 

 without any attempt to hatch them. He kindly gave 

 me directions, which were implicitly followed ; and 

 they were fed on canary and millet-seed (millet in the 

 ear), sponge-cake, soaked in water and pressed, mixed 

 with a little hard - boiled egg, or dried ants' eggs, 

 soaked in water, and in due time five birds were 

 hatched. The nest was built of grass-sprays, cotton- 

 wool, and feathers, in a cocoa-nut, both birds sat for 

 thirteen days on the little white eggs, all night and 

 the greater part of the day, always carefully covering 

 them up with grass when they left them. The young 

 birds stayed in the nest till fully fledged, then re- 

 moved to an open basket, lined with flannel, and the 

 old birds began to build again immediately, and subse- 

 quently reared a nest of three and one of four young 



